Jean Piaget
(1896-1980)
Started out as a biologist but specialized in psychology. He was interested in
the nature of knowledge and how the child acquires knowledge. Piaget saw
empirical studies of children and adolescents as the most important source of
information about the nature of knowledge. He made a valuable contribution
to understanding how thinking develops, and he inspired many child
psychologist all over the world.
Piaget’s Method

Piaget based his theory on observations and open-ended interviews. This
clinical method enabled Piaget to gain insight into the children’s judgment
and explanations of events. He presented children with a number of tasks
designed to discover the level of logical reasoning underpinning their
thinking. He was interested in the way they arrived at their conclusions. His
method was critized for:

Using a small and non-representative sample

Lack of scientific rigour

Asking questions that are too complex for children
Piaget’s theory of cognitive
development

According to Piaget, there are qualitative differences between the way adults and
children think. Action and self-directed problem solving are at the heart of
learning and cognitive development in children. Formal logic is seen as the
highest and last stage in intellectual development.

The child is seen as an active “scientist”: He or she actively constructs
knowledge about the social and physical world as he or she interacts with it. Each
child builds his or her own mental representation of the world (schemas) used to
interpret and interact with objects, people, and events. Piaget used the word
“operation” to describe physical of symbolic manipulations of (thinking) of things.

Stages theory: Children’s cognitive development progresses thorough stages over
time. According to Piaget, the content and sequence of stages in a cognitive
development is the same for all humans (universal theory). Children cannot learn
or be taught how to function at higher levels of cognition before they have passed
through the lower levels.
Key Concept Schema

Knowledge is seen as cognitve structures or mental representations (squemas)
that change over time. The baby uses an innate genetically based repertoire
of schemas uses an innate genetically based repertoire of schemas (suking,
grasping) to explore the world.

Knowledge comes from the baby’s actions upon objects in the environment.
At later stages, action is replaced by "thinking", which Piaget sees as a kind of
action.

Schemas are integrated and modified as a result of experience (adaptation)
and new schemas emerge when existing schemas are inadequate.
Adaptation (learning) can take to forms:

Assimilation: New information is integrated into existing cognitive schemas,
for example "dog" is categorized as "animal" knowledge is consolidated.

Accommodation: Existing schemas are modified to fit new information or new
schemas are created New knowledge is created.
Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Sensorimotor (0-2 years) Baby goes from reflexive instinctual action (sucking,
grasping) to constructing knowledge via coordination of sensory experiences with
physical actions.

Preoperational (2-7 years) Thinking is intuitive and dominated by the appearance
of things and focusing on one dimension at a time. Shows egocentrism (difficulty
seeing things from the perspective of others) and lack of conservation (cannot see
that things remain constant in spite of change in the visible appearance). Not able
to use formal logic.

Concrete operational (7-11) Can carry out mental operations but needs to see the
objects being concretely manipulated (e.g. understanding what happens in the
conservation test and why objects remain the same in spite of changing form).

Formal operational (11-15) Ability to use abstract reasoning and logic. Can deal
with hypothetical problems and mentally manipulate ideas, numbers and
concepts. Can use deductive reasoning.
Homework

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnArvcWaH6I

For homework:

Read pages 186 to 190 from Crane, J. Psychology course companion.

Find and define key concepts: (8 marks)
Constructionist approach
Adaptation
Assimilation
Accommodation
On page 190 you’ll find Evaluation of Piaget’s theory, after reading, it state two
strengths and two limitations of Piaget’s theory. (4 marks)